Another week, another horse-frighteningly ugly contestant wows the Britain’s Got Talent judges.
We’ve had Shaheen Jafargholi (‘OMG, what a cutey!’) and Susan Boyle (‘WTF, that’s a woman? You sure it’s not Steve McFadden in a curly wig?’). Well, stand by for another four hour phonecall with your gran, because Britain’s Got Talent has unearthed a third inbred monster who can halfway hold a tune. And this time, the facial hair is deliberate. It’s another Welsh fella, which means the people of Swansea, Cardiff (and… er, Llarrghhllaachh?) will have to choose whether they love a man or a small boy.
We should rephrase that.
Britain’s Got Talent has really confused us now. We were perfectly happy with the two choices offered a couple of weeks ago: the Scottish powerlifter and the Welsh foetus. That was fine; do we want our Christmas ruined by Geoff Capes singing Lloyd-Webber, or a pre-pubescent with hideously inappropriately-titled Michael Jackson covers?
But now they’ve thrown into the mix Jamie Pugh, a nervous little blancmange of a man who, it turns out, can sing. A bit. Sort of. Look, he sings better than he looks, okay, which means he doesn’t sound like a big dog being dragged behind a tractor.
On Saturday night, Jamie walked onto the stage with the heartbreaking lack of self-confidence that comes with having an accent/name combination which has given you a lifetime of introducing yourself as, “Hello, my name is Mister Poo” (note: never ever become a teacher, Jamie). The judges scented prey: Piers Morgan‘s head whipped around with such speed it produced a tiny sonic boom; Amanda Holden seemed to be on the verge of bringing up her lunch at the sight of this misshapen lump which dared to presume it could entertain her; and Simon Cowell apparently didn’t know whether to laugh, cry or begin flicking little bits of soggy paper at the poor sap.
After some horrifyingly awkward smalltalk between Jamie and Cowell, the music started, Jamie began singing, and the world gasped: “Sweet Lord, unbelievable. It looks like a jellyfish with a beard, but it can’t half sing not too badly really. You know, considering.” As we predicted, Cowell watched the entire performance with his head leaning on one hand and the look of serene tranquillity on his face that can only indicate one thing: a man discreetly pleasuring himself to the sound of lots of money being printed.
Song over, and the judges gave us their serious faces, the ones reserved for ‘ugly humanoids whose singing turns out to be a little bit better than the sound a zombie makes when it’s kicked in the balls’.
The tiny motors operating Amanda Holden’s eyelids whirred to fully-open ‘Bambi’. She indicated the cheering audience behind her and asked Jamie: “How does that make you feel?”. Don’t tell her, you fool, she’s trying to learn from us. Before you know it, she’ll be able to form relationships with humans, and then it’s one short step to the Borg.
Piers Morgan’s mouth moved, and some sounds came out. He may have been trying to speak, but sadly his tongue just flapped around in his mouth like a trout in a landing net.
So it fell on Simon Cowell to tell this lumbering simpleton the good news:
“I know how important the last three minutes were to your life.”
He didn’t then go on to add: “Because if you hadn’t performed to my satisfaction, you would have been taken behind the theatre and shot in the back of the head.”
His incredibly acute senses detecting a slightly less than stellar ego up on stage, Cowell advised: “You’ve got to start believing in yourself“. Mr Poo clasped his hands to his weird face, overcome with emotion. Let’s leave it to the live audience to describe the moment’s incredible sense of human achievement, of triumph over a disabling fear of rejection:
“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh.”
Like the sound you’d make watching a monkey tie its own shoelaces.
So what unlikely freakery is next for Britain’s Got Talent? An orphaned giraffe with big, sad eyes singing I Had A Dream? A housebrick who’s been bullied by roofing tiles, but has the audience in tears with Nothing Compares 2 U? Or an overweight 92-year-old woman in a ballet skirt and tube top, who spins plates on a row of upright dildos while counting backwards from 35 to 26 in Armenian?
We can’t bloody wait.*
*We can wait.
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Lee Barratt says
Cock on you are!
I mean you could not have said it better than that!
Your not too rude either…
Adrian Sleeman says
As a Welshman I found your comments regarding Jamie Pugh
offensive and ill founded. The fact is that he is an incredibly talented singer (I guess you must be tone deaf)and looks not
unlike Robert Deniro(OK blind too). I expect the reason you cannot pronounce a Welsh town has a lot to do with your inability to handle more than two sequential syllables.
Llewelyn ap Gruffyd says
No, Welsh towns just have incredibly ridiculous names. As do their residents.